Employee Engagement during significant changes allowing for smoother transitions and evolution with less turnover and dis-satisfaction within the workforce. Reflected through Engagement Surveys, interviews, focus group feedback.

Sustainable Outcomes that endure and are embedded in the fabric and systems of the client organization. Residual capability applied without coaching required.

The client was restructuring from a wholly-owned retail chain to one that offered franchises and maintained only a small portion of the existing chain. During the transition, they needed to sustain and increase sales, as well as tap the energy and enthusiasm of the employees – even in the face of significant change. Controlling turnover was critical for maintenance of the chains quality and performance while in the process of wooing franchisees.

The leader took on the challenge and chose to engage the workforce in a new and different performance system structure that was more enabling, easier to understand and fun. This stabilized and allowed for sales to grow as well as quality to be maintained.

The next step was to create a more engaging process for on-boarding and training of new employees that provided consistency and sustainable quality for the stores. Every store should look and feel the same to customers. A picture-focused process enabled these outcomes that was fun, easy to use and was transparent to the customer who saw it as a recipe book versus a training guide.

All in all, a success story in that the client changed their structure with minimal turnover, and no loss of sales, or quality. In fact, quality improved.

FOUR is an acronym for Framing, Openness, Understanding and Reciprocity

Skills that (when used together) result in Win/Win outcomes for working with others.

In todays world of global connections, fast changes and high expectations, your ability to work effectively with others to deliver the “best” solution for your client is vital for your success.

You all need to be on the same wavelength, have the same priorities, and all be committed and supportive of one another.

To combat these obstacles and assure that everybody is on the same playing field, understanding the same rules of play, and having clarity for how to make a goal, FOUR was created.

Framing is the sharing of the Big Picture or high level vision such that the playing field on which you are all players is clear, clean and understood.

Openness to others opinions, ideas, input and options for what the Big Picture actually looks like and what the rules of the game are is a necessity requiring withholding judgment and truly listening to what others have to say. It is also asking good questions and behaving in such a way that others feel valued and encouraged to contribute their ideas and input.

Understanding is the ability to reflect back what others have shared in an understanding manner. They need to believe that you really do understand their point or view, priorities, and feelings regarding the task at hand.

Reciprocity is the give and take over time that results in sustainable performance together. It manifests itself as offering in-process options and alternatives focused on others desires and outcomes even in the face of not achieving your personal goals in the moment, but contributing to the ultimate big picture vision you both have for the future.

Although the FOUR skills are all required to make true collaboration and partnering take place, they are not necessarily sequential in nature and can be applied as needed and when necessary to achieve or maintain collaboration.

Three Tenets of Leadership

Have a Vision for Change – Without a vision for how something could be different or better, there is no need for leadership. Leaders lead others into new and different futures.

Leadership is all about experimentation, learning, risk and dynamism. Management is all about efficiency, effectiveness, consistency and maximizing stasis.

Engage Followers – Without followers a leader is alone and stands little to no chance of making any changes that will stick.

Some faux-leaders think they can make change happen by themselves and then realize the change only lasts as long as they are present because unengaged doers neglect and ignore the change when the faux-leader is not present.

Create Focused Energy – When one or many followers are engaged and committed to achieving a vision for change they begin making things happen. The leader must harness and align this energy such that work and behaviors stay focused on the collective outcomes agreed to for the vision. Otherwise, chaos reigns and conflicts abound.

How are you doing as a leader? Want some additional thoughts and ideas for enhancing your capabilities – give a call or email us for ideas.